China

Gov. Malloy will go to China in September: Governor Dannel P. Malloy announced today at a meeting with a delegation of officials from Guangdong Province that he has accepted an invitation to participate in the World Economic Forum Summit in Tianjin, China. The Governor will be joined by Department of Economic and Community Development Commissioner Catherine Smith, and will also include a stop in Connecticut's sister province, Shandong, to explore...

Twenty high school students from Connecticut traveled to China in August, completing a year-long program that began when a delegation of Chinese students came to Connecticut last summer. The students from Mark T. Sheehan and Lyman Hall high schools in Wallingford joined 20 Shanghai students for a week-long focus on topics including business leadership, ethics and entrepreneurship. The first-in-the-nation Junior Achievement (JA) international exchange program, JA Global Connection, is aimed at helping students better understand each other's cultures, economies and global business in general.

Two major insurers with significant local ties to the Hartford area have received approval to open new subsidiaries in China. New Jersey-based Chubb, which has operations in Farmington, has received approval from the Chinese government to open a new property and casualty insurance subsidiary in Nanjing. The insurer said it expects to open the unit by February. Chubb already operates a similar entity in Shanghai, which opened in September 2000. In addition, Bermuda-based XL Insurance, which also has operations in Hartford, said it has received approval from China to open a property and casualty insurance subsidiary in Shanghai.

Twenty high school students from Connecticut traveled to China this summer to complete a year-long program that began when a delegation of Chinese students came to Connecticut last summer. The students from Mark T. Sheehan and Lyman Hall high schools in Wallingford joined 20 Shanghai students for a week-long focus on topics including business leadership, ethics and entrepreneurship. The program, called the Junior Achievement Global Connection, is the first-in-the-nation Junior Achievement international exchange program and is aimed at helping students better understand each others cultures, economies and global business in general.

I was sadden to read about Aundrea Murray's account of her experience in China [April 24, Fresh Talk, "Chinese Single Out Visiting Black Students"]. I remember the early years of elementary school when my classmates would taunt me -- pulling the corners of their eyes and singing "ching, chong, chang. " Thankfully, we've all grown up since then. China, however, has a lot to learn about manners and the proper way to treat people. The only comfort I can give Ms. Murray is reassurance that her bruised heart will heal, through the kindness she'll find from people who embrace diversity.

By From Staff Reports and Press Releases and The Hartford Courant, April 4, 2011

Chinese National Team To Play Sun The Connecticut Sun will play the Chinese national team in an exhibition May 19 at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville. China will also play the New York Liberty on May 27 in Albany, and will participate in a three-way scrimmage with the Sun and Liberty at New York's training center in White Plains. China is eighth in FIBA's world rankings. "They have players capable of playing in our league," Sun coach Mike Thibault said, "so we'll be up against a good team.

Carrier Corp. has launched three new joint ventures in China, the company announced Thursday. The ventures are a commercial and industrial air conditioning equipment manufacturer, a room air conditioning manufacturing operation and an engineering and service company to support Carrier's national sales and service programs. Carrier, a subsidiary of Hartford- based United Technologies Corp., holds a majority interest in each of the ventures. The remaining shares are owned by local partners.

A decade ago today, Xu Wang stood among tens of thousands of Beijing's best and brightest professionals, hand-picked by the government to fill Tiananmen Square for a grand celebration. Wang, now a Shelton resident, marveled at the fireworks display so extravagant that, to his communist-educated sensibilities, it seemed "like money falling out of the sky." On that controversial 40th annivesary of the People's Republic of China -- just months after the government's bloody crackdown on student demonstrators in the very same square -- Wang couldn't help wondering whether his country's future would be nearly as bright as the glittering pyrotechnics seemed to promise.

Through a novel sister-school partnership with China, a delegation of 11 Chinese students and staff visited the Global Experience Magnet School. The group was comprised of nine students, one teacher and an assistant principal from No. 2 High School of Yinchuan, China. The students stayed with GEMS host families and participated in activities that allowed them to explore the region's history and culture. The students also toured the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Six Flags, observed the Connecticut shoreline and attended the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus.

The bubbly enthusiasm that many analysts express about the Chinese economy reminds me of the old-time variety show host Lawrence Welk, who banished worries each week with soothing sounds from his "Champagne Music Makers." China watchers should turn off the music and listen to Premier Wen Jiabao, who has been surprisingly frank in warning that over-investment and lack of domestic demand are producing an economic bubble in his country. "The biggest problem with China's economy is that the growth is unstable, unbalanced, uncoordinated and unsustainable," Wen cautioned at a March 2007 news conference during the National People's Congress.

STR Holdings Inc. of East Windsor on Tuesday said it has an agreement to sell a majority of the company to a solar-power business in China, Zhenfa Energy Group Co. Zhenfa will buy a 51 percent interest in STR for $21.7 million. The proceeds and other cash on hand will be distributed to STR stockholders in a special divided with an aggregate value of $22.6 million. The goal of selling a majority share of the company to Zhenfa is to drive STR's sales of photovoltaic encapsulants - materials used in solar panels - to solar module manufacturers in China.

The owners of Hobby Lobby are clearly interested only in saving money by avoiding paying for some forms of birth control under its health plans; their claim of religious objection is nothing but a cheap farce [July 1, Page 1, "Birth Control Mandate Struck"]. Proof of this is that many if not most of the products in their stores come from China, well-known for its support of every type of birth control in existence, including forced abortions. If religious objections had any meaning to Hobby Lobby's owners, they would not do business with China.

By SAVANNAH MUL, smul@courant.com and The Hartford Courant, June 8, 2014

FARMINGTON - The Jackson Laboratory and Frasergen announced Friday that a Cancer Genomics facility will be built in the Hubei Province of China and some of the data will be analyzed at the Jackson Laboratory location in Farmington. The Jackson Laboratory is under construction now on the UConn Health center campus and is expected to be completed in October, said Edison Liu, the CEO and president of Jackson Laboratory. "This really shows Connecticut's footprint in the bio-world," Liu said.

Through a novel sister-school partnership with China, a delegation of 11 Chinese students and staff visited the Global Experience Magnet School. The group was comprised of nine students, one teacher and an assistant principal from No. 2 High School of Yinchuan, China. The students stayed with GEMS host families and participated in activities that allowed them to explore the region's history and culture. The students also toured the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Six Flags, observed the Connecticut shoreline and attended the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus.

On Wednesday, it finally happened - the pivot to Asia. No, not the United States. It was Russia that turned East. In Shanghai, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping signed a spectacular energy deal - $400 billion of Siberian natural gas to be exported to China over 30 years. This is huge. By indelibly linking producer and consumer - the pipeline alone is a $70 billion infrastructure project - it deflates the post-Ukraine Western threat (mostly empty, but still very loud)

BY ERIK HESSELBERG, Special To The Courant and The Hartford Courant, April 6, 2014

Returning from the Connecticut woods each day, after a morning of checking 40 or more animal traps, Don Dandelski always takes a look at the latest cable news. In the global fur business, international events can affect his bottom line. "This Russian situation is a concern," says Dandelski, a 45-year-old Wallingford resident who started trapping when he was 12. "Russians are big fur buyers. The tensions over there could affect prices. " "Weather is another factor," Dandelski adds. "Fur is a cold-weather commodity.

BY WILLIAM WEIR, bweir@courant.com and The Hartford Courant, October 15, 2013

STORRS - About 50 of China's most elite coaches and sports scientists are visiting the University of Connecticut this week to learn more about how athletes are trained in the U.S. Half of the group are Olympic coaches and half are sports scientists selected by China's State General Administration of Sports to work with the coaches and athletes. Tuesday, they toured UConn's kinesiology department, where faculty study exercise science, sports nutrition, athletic training and physical therapy.

Hartford is Thomas Hardy's home. For years, the world stopped at the end of his street, but when he was a teen, a family friend offered to take him to New York. Hardy leaped at the chance, and that trip, he says now, "was the biggest event of my life. " Later this year, Hardy will wind up nearly four decades of teaching in the Hartford school system. His coda? An ambitious trip to China with 19 Hartford students. Don't laugh. He's done this before, taken Hartford students up and down the East Coast and, in 2008, on a life-changing trip to South Africa.

Is the rise of China in national power a threat to the United States or does it allow for a partnership opportunity? That will be the question discussed at Duncaster's World Affairs meeting on Tuesday, March 25. The meeting will be held at Duncaster from 10:30 a.m. to noon. It is free to the public with pre-registration. The discussion will focus on the article Chinas Foreign Policy" featured in the Foreign Policy Association's Great Decisions booklet. The session will begin with a video of a council of foreign affairs experts.